Lucky in New York

On Saturday, June 22 Kevin and I flew to New York City! We left Colorado Springs at 6:30am and arrived in NYC around 3:00pm. We took a taxi to the hotel, dropped off our bags and went out into Times Square. Our hotel was on 48^th Street between 10^th and 11^th Avenues, which was a great location for us. It was nice to be a little removed from all of the chaos of Times Square, but still be close enough to walk there within 15 minutes. We stopped to get some pizza on our way to the Matilda lottery and were feeling hopeful! Matilda was nominated for 11 Tony Awards this year and it is definitely a HOT ticket to get. I wanted to see the show when mom and I were here in March, but she wasn’t too interested in the show at that time. After the Tony’s she regretted that decision. The lottery began at 6pm and unfortunately our names were not called. I was really hoping to see a show that evening so we re-evaluated our plan. We tried for tickets at Spider-Man, Rock of Ages, Annie, Once, and Peter and the Starcatcher, but the prices and/or seats were not appealing. I remembered that Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike had a Youth Rush (anyone under 35 can get 2 tickets for $37 each) so we tried our hand at that. This show won the 2013 Tony Award for Best Play, and starred David Hyde Pierce and Sigourney Weaver, so I didn’t think we would have much luck getting discounted tickets, especially since it was so late in the day. To my great surprise, they had 2 tickets available! The only downfall was that the seats were not together. I decided this was the show I wanted to see, regardless of the seat situation, and I bought our tickets. This was another show that mom and I wanted to see in March, but it didn’t make the cut. I was excited! We walked over to my friend Ryan’s restaurant and had a few drinks before going back to the theatre at 8pm. The show was very funny and entertaining! I have learned that I enjoy plays, but I much prefer musicals. That being said, this play was wonderful! We went to the stage door after the show and surprisingly the entire cast came out! They were all incredibly gracious and it was awesome to meet them! We finished up around 11pm and went star stalking at other theatres. We stopped at the Pippin stage door to see if Andrea Martin came out (she didn’t come out in March when mom and I saw it) but she didn’t. Instead I got an awesome picture with Terrence Mann and his on AND off-stage wife Charlotte D’Amboise (who didn’t come out last time either). It was awesome! We decided to go back to the hotel around 11:30pm because we had to get up and go to work the next morning. We fell asleep around 1am. It was a great start to the weekend!

Panorama of the crowd at the Matilda lottery. 

2013 Tony Award winner for Best Play, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike at the Golden Theatre

My sneaky attempt at photographing the stage. This was the set for the entire show. 

Tony Nominated Billy Magnussen aka Spike.

Tony Nominated Kristine Nielsen aka Sonia.

Tony Nominated David Hyde Pierce aka Vanya.

Sigourney Weaver aka Masha.

Tony Nominated Terrence Mann and Charlotte D'Amboise from Pippin!

We woke up around 8:30am on Sunday morning and were on the ship around 10am. Our hotel was only a block away from the port, so it was nice to walk there instead of hailing a taxi. Our inspection was on a brand new ship so I was apprehensive that there would be a lot of extra work to do and we would be working for most of the day, but to my surprise, we finished work by 12pm! This meant that we had the possibility of going to see a Sunday matinee! I decided I wanted to try our luck again at the Matilda lottery. The lottery began at 1pm so we had just enough time to drop off the tool bag, change clothes and enter our names in the drawing. They had a total of 20 tickets available and Kevin and I got 2 of them! They called MY name! I could not believe it! It was turning out to be an incredible weekend! I purchased our tickets for $27 each and then Kevin and I went to Shake Shack for lunch. We still had some extra time so we went back to Ryan’s restaurant and had a drink before the show. While we were enjoying our cocktails, my friend Chelsea walked in. I didn’t even know she was in New York and it was a great surprise to catch up with her. Matilda started at 3:00pm and was amazing! The kids in the show were so talented, even Kevin was pleasantly surprised. After seeing Matilda and Kinky Boots, the two contenders for Best New Musical, I definitely think Matilda should have won. Kinky Boots was definitely a fun show, but Matilda was much better all around. I was just so happy that we were able to see it, and didn’t have to spend a ton of money. Of course we went to the stage door after the show. Only about 6 cast members, out of 25 or so, came out the stage door. None of the kids came out; I don’t know if that is because of their age, or contract or what, but it was OK because I saw the people I really wanted to see! 

The cruise ship had an ice bar so we had to check it out!

The winning ticket!

My friend Chelsea, from high school!

Matilda the Musical at the Shubert Theatre.

The incredible stage! The stage was made up of hundreds of these scrabble like blocks and letters. It was awesome!

Ryan Steele! I fell in love with Ryan when I saw him in Newsies! He is one of the best dancers I have ever seen! It was such a great surprise to find out he was in this show!

Tony Award winner, Gabe Ebert! Gabe is a Colorado native and a friend of a friend! He played Mr. Wormwood and was brilliant! 

 Tony Nominated Bertie Carvel aka the Trunchbull! He originated the role in Stratford-upon-Avon and London and it was incredible to see him in New York! You would never guess that this charming man could create such a nasty character!

We finished up around 6:15pm and hopped in a taxi to Union Square. Before we even left for New York I had made the decision that if we didn’t see any other shows this weekend, we would for sure be going to see an Off-Broadway show called Murder Ballad. Most shows on and off Broadway are dark on Sunday nights but this show had a 7pm performance so I was excited we would be able to see something on Sunday night. This show stars 2 of my current favorite Broadway actors, Caissie Levy and Will Swenson. They both starred in Hair together and I fell in love with them at that point. We got to the theatre around 6:30pm and bought 3 tickets for $31 each (my friend Ryan was able to join us)! I love cheap theatre tickets! The show was incredible! It was a rock opera with no intermission and it had you on the edge of your seat the whole time! The theatre was small and intimate and the cast interacted heavily with the audience. There were about 20 cabaret style tables with chairs in the midst of the stage and the rest of the seating surrounded the stage on 3 sides. It was very unique and added so much to the feel of the show. This was by far my favorite show of the weekend and I would recommend it to anyone in the New York area! Because this was an Off-Broadway show, the stage door experience was a little different. There were no barricades and there were fewer people waiting for autographs. The cast members came out the entrance to the theatre and were so happy to see “fans” waiting for them! The cast members had a meeting so it took them a while to come out (about 45 minutes) but the true fans waited it out, and it was totally worth it! We went out for dinner and drinks with Ryan after the show and then took a taxi back to the hotel. We had an early morning flight so we packed our bags and fell asleep around 1:00am. It was an incredible day!

Murder Ballad at the Union Square Theatre!

Advertisement for the show.

Will Swenson just before the show began.

Rebecca Naomi Jones. She was incredible! Mom and I saw her in American Idiot a few years ago, and she was just as great in this show as that one!

John Ellison Conlee. This was the first time I have seen him onstage and I hope it was not the last!

WILL SWENSON!! He is my mom's favorite Broadway star and I would have to agree with her! He is so good!

 Caissie Levy! Boy does she have some pipes. I bought the soundtrack for this show and was very sad when Caissie was not on it. The show is so much better with her in it! 

The boys with Caissie. They like her about as much as I like Will! 

I love spending time in New York. It is one of my favorite places in the WORLD, and if you know me and follow this blog at all, that is saying something! I feel alive in the city and I love the theatre experience.  I love that Kevin and I were able to see THREE Broadway shows for under $200! I look forward to many more trips to the city with my mom and Kevin and one day with my own child! I will always be a theatre junkie!

Road Trip to Barcelona

On Thursday, May 23 Kevin and I flew to Baltimore, Maryland. We left Colorado Springs around 11am and arrived in Baltimore around 8pm. We collected our luggage, picked up our renal car, and arrived at the hotel around 9pm. We were pretty hungry, so we went down to the Yard House in the lobby and ate a crab pretzel and two burgers. We got back to our room around 11pm and fell asleep around midnight.

We woke up around 9am on Friday morning and went to work. It was rainy and cold so we did most of our inspection indoors and were finished by 11am. We arranged for a late check out so we didn’t have to leave the hotel until 2pm. We went back to the Yard House for lunch and accessed the free Wi-Fi and I finally got the blog up-to-date! It was an amazing feeling! We went back up the room around 1pm to shower and pack and then we were off to the airport to fly to Barcelona. This is when our true adventure began! We found out earlier in the day that our flight from Baltimore to Philadelphia was delayed, making our connection almost impossible to catch. After we dropped off our rental car we found out (before arriving at the airport) that our fight had actually been cancelled! At that point the situation was out of our hands and we needed to find out what the airline would provide. When we got to the airport, around 3pm, US Airways informed us that they would pay for a shuttle to DRIVE us to Philadelphia; so we hopped on a Super Shuttle with about 10 other people from our cancelled flight and began the journey to Philadelphia. The drive took us just over 2 hours and we drove through 3 different states in that time frame (Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania). I love driving on the east coast! We arrived at the airport around 5:15pm and our flight to Munich left at 6:30pm (we actually got to the airport earlier than we would have if our initial flight had been on time). 

A Liberty Bell made out of Legos! 

We flew 7.5 hours to Munich and had a 2-hour layover before finishing our journey in Barcelona! We arrived in Barcelona around 1:30pm on Saturday and took the free airport shuttle to our hotel. We went straight up to our room and slept until about 5:30pm. A friend of ours, who also works for Royal Caribbean, was staying at the same hotel and we made plans to meet him in the city at 7pm. We took the free hotel shuttle to Las Ramblas at 6pm and walked up to the Hard Rock Café to meet Matt and his friend Brandon. The four of us proceeded to our favorite Irish Pub for drinks and dinner and then ventured back to the hotel. We took the metro to Plaza Espanya and took a few pictures at the Magic Fountain before hopping on the city bus back to the hotel. We got back to the hotel around 11pm and fell asleep around midnight.

Christopher Columbus showing his FCB pride (the Barcelona soccer team).

Kevin, Matt, and Brandon outside our favorite Irish Pub. It always amuses me to see friends all over the world!

The Magic Fountain

We woke up around 7:30am on Sunday morning and went downstairs for breakfast. We took the free hotel shuttle to Las Ramblas and then took the T3 bus to the cruise port. There were four ships in port and so many people! We got on the ship around 9:30am and worked until about 1:30pm. We ate lunch at the pub and took a taxi back to the hotel. We took a nap until about 8pm and then crocheted a few hats! We got a late-night snack at the hotel bar and then struggled to fall asleep. I fell asleep around 4am and Kevin was awake until almost 6:30am! Needless to say, we slept for the majority of the following day.

The view of Barcelona from the ship. Here you can see the Christopher Columbus statue and the Sagrada Familia in the background. 

I woke up around 2pm on Monday and Kevin woke up around 4:30pm. Because we had already wasted most of the day sleeping, we decided to stay at the hotel and crochet instead of going into the city (it took at least 30 minutes to an hour to get to the main part of the city from the hotel). We ordered room service for dinner and fell asleep around 2am.

Our room service dinner. 

Tuesday, May 28, was our 2^nd anniversary! We woke up around 10am and got to the ship around noon. We ate lunch on the ship and then took a taxi back to the hotel. We got back to the hotel around 3pm and ventured back into the city around 4pm. We took the express bus to Plaza Espanya and then to the metro to Park Guell! Park Guell is a beautiful public park that was designed by Antoni Gaudi and the architecture it just beautiful! A lot of his architecture features tile mosaics and this park certainly does not stray from his norm. We took a few photos and then found a quiet picnic bench to enjoy our bottle of wine and celebrate our anniversary. It was a very casual and relaxing afternoon, but a perfect way to celebrate! We left the park around 7pm and took the metro to Las Ramblas. We did a little shopping and then ate dinner at our favorite Irish Pub, Flaherty’s. We got back to the hotel around 11pm and fell asleep around 1am. It was a great anniversary!

Gaudi's mosaic sign just outside the park.

Beautiful columns underneath the main terrace.

On the main terrace. This incredible mosaic park bench lines the perimeter of the terrace. 

Exquisite stone columns and pathway. 

This is the outside view of the columns under the main terrace. The details in all of the architecture amaze me. You can see the outside of the mosaic bench and some gargoyle heads!

The exterior of the Sagrada Familia from Park Guell. 

A fun tree that we found overlooking the city of Barcelona. 

Some photos of us. There are more photos in the anniversary edition of our trip. 

The largest vending machine I have ever seen!

Our flight home left at 10:45am on Wednesday. We flew from Barcelona to Philadelphia to Chicago to Colorado Springs. It took us an hour and a half to get through customs in Philadelphia. The line was ridiculous! We boarded our flight to Chicago and just before we took off the captain informed us that Chicago had shut down their airspace for a VIP guest. We sat on the runway for an hour before we were cleared for take off. Fortunately, our flight from Chicago to Colorado Springs was also delayed and we arrived home around 11pm.

2nd Anniversary!

Today, Kevin and I celebrated our 2^nd wedding anniversary, and what better way to celebrate than in Barcelona! We flew to Barcelona for a work trip on Friday, May 24 (that post to come very soon), and will fly home tomorrow. We worked this morning but were able to celebrate this afternoon. We decided to go to Park Guell, a public park designed by Antoni Gaudi, and we enjoyed sightseeing and a local bottle of wine. It was a casual, but wonderful way to celebrate!

We also celebrated our anniversary at home on May 19 and enjoyed a scrumptious Sunday Brunch at the Broadmoor! It was absolutely delicious!

We will continue our celebration with photos taken by the fabulous Shannon Coker on June 4. I will update again when we have received those photos!

I am so lucky to be able to spend the rest of my life with Kevin! He is the Yin to my Yang, the gravy to my mashed potatoes, and the cheese to my macaroni! I love him with all my heart and can’t wait for the next 50+ years with him by my side!